What's in a name? Legal threats

maybe - even when it's a moniker

only a dimbulb could love and

attached to an idea so

peerlessly asinine that to call

it "easy" does a disservice to

working prostitutes. No, we're

not self-reflecting, we're

talking about the ongoing feud

between spanker.com and

spanq.com, the two latest

contestants in the "wry web

commentary" sweepstakes, even

though the web has long ago

proven itself neither wry nor

worthy of comment. We hear

Spanker has been spanking Spanq!

with threats of litigation for

stealing their big idea (and

jingle). Aside from the

common-sense observation that

neither of these outfits have

cause to be running their

intellectual property

credentials up any flagpoles,

we're a little puzzled. When two

sites independently build the

bedrock of their net.product on

a crummy Real Audio sample of an

infant getting slapped, wouldn't

it make more sense to leave the

lawyers alone and give a ring to

the idiot patrol division of

Child Protection Services?

The web scene is so crazy. Sites

start up each and every day. We

saw another one just the other

day, a special new link. We don't

care, don't care, really

don't care... but did you see the

drummer's hair? '80s is the kitsch

du jour and if you savor the

drippy cheese of acid wash, you

probably have a mullet. After

all, attention, fame and careers

are a lot easier with a long

flowing soccer-rocker, and as

soon every hipster from the East

Village to the Mission starts

sportin' the Mel Gibson style

ape-drape some savvy marketer

will have your look-alike

singing School House Rock tunes

with your friends in a Dockers

commercial. This will hurt us

more than it will hurt you,

however, because the Sucksters

are obsessive compulsive "mullet

slug bug" players. Ouch.

Perky spork animations aside, the

basic premise of spork.org is

that the spork "tries to

function as both spoon and fork,

and because of this dual nature,

it fails miserably at both."

Having attempted, on numerous

occasions, to rapidly shovel KFC

mashed potatoes into our mouths

sans spork, we can't disagree

more. While we'll concede that

"[y]ou cannot have soup with a

spork, it is far to shallow; you

cannot eat meat with a spork,

the prongs are too small," we

must remind the fine members of

the Spork Organization that the humble

spork was never meant to function

exactly as a spoon or a fork,

just as a Spiv or a Slate was

not meant to Suck. And just as

true Sucksters know that this

ain't no Chomsky reader, true

sporksters recognize that the

spork was crafted for the sole

purpose of sporking sporkable

foods. Furthermore, we find

their desecration of the spork

into a "foon" unmindful at best,

blasphemous at worst - and

particularly insensitive

considering the number of people

who have 10,000 spoons when all

they need is a spork.

Given that the Elvis imitator

industry didn't really take off

until the King's untimely

bathroom exit, we can only

imagine how many tributes we'll

inspire when our own voracious

appetite for fried Xanax

sandwiches turns fatal. So far,

our snarling sycophants have

mainly opted for skinny Suck

homages, but now the first

tributes to the bloated,

silver-sequined, butt-wagging

Suck are starting to appear too.

Reading these efforts is a lot

like going to a performance by

Dave Tapley: if you're drunk

enough, and far enough a way

from the stage, the tubby

troubador looks a like the real

thing. For a minute or two. But

then, all too quickly, the

counterfeit asserts itself: a

hip thrust when a lip curl would

have clearly been more

appropriate, the overreliance on

the throaty growl. While some

might feel imperfections are a

deviation from the original,

it's clear to a more calloused

observer that "mistakes" like

"teet" just make that much

harder to tell the difference.

Far from being able to teach him

a thing or two, we probably have

a lot to learn; we're especially

interested in this "penis

warefare" thing.